22/02/2012 Newsnight Scotland


22/02/2012

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Tonight on Newsnight Scotland... As Rangers' administrators thank the

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fans and other football clubs for their sympathy and understanding so

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far, we will ask about the politicians' reactions. Have they

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been wise to get involved? Or have they just made themselves look

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foolish? Also tonight, the First Minister's

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chief economic adviser tells me Britain would still have

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substantial control over the economy of an independent Scotland.

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And that keeping RBS might not be a great idea.

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Good evening. The administrators running Rangers put out a statement

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tonight thanking the club's fans for their loyal support so far.

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They also acknowledged that other football clubs are generally

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sympathetic and what they called very supportive of the survival of

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the club. But it is not just football fans who have special

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sympathy for Rangers. Politicians have always found it difficult to

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keep quiet about matters which interest the public. But it is

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potentially a rocky path. The Rangers manager, Ally McCoist,

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ashen-faced as he left Ibrox without speaking to reporters

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following a meeting with administrators this afternoon. At

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the weekend, fans tried hard to show solidarity with the club and

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their manager in particular. There is no doubting the raw emotion felt

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by fans in these difficult times. The club is part of their lives,

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the community and they are distraught at what is going on, but

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this club is also a multi- million pounds business with obligations to

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shareholders and, of course, the taxman. And when the Revenue could

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have gone easy on football clubs because of those places within the

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community, those days could have gone. Rangers is seen as more as a

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business than anything else. The majority shareholder, Craig Whyte,

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faces a number of questions, not least over �9 million over unpaid

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tax. Politicians have also been asking for understanding from the

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Revenue. We should keep an eye on what is best for Rangers and other

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clubs within Scottish football, that would be a sensible thing to

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do and asking both Rangers and Revenue and Customs that these

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matters should be settled best by sensible agreement. What we want to

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see, which the administrators should teach to do, is find a way

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forward for Rangers to fulfil their obligations, but for the sake of

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football and the people working there. It is not just the SNP

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asking for flexibility. Margaret And from Labour, it was said they

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Rangers fans might feel isolated, but even you the Revenue's case

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against Tottenham manager, Harry Redknapp, field, it shows at

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Rangers is in the spotlight. And Leeds United went into

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administration five years ago, falling �6 million of unpaid tax.

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Politicians are lawmakers and tax spenders at must be careful about

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defending those who sail close to the wind. How comfortable are the

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over these shots? One of these men failed to play players in time. As

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Ally McCoist drove away from Ibrox, he knew he could count on support

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from the bowler -- from the political world, but what should be

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carefully given out. So how easy is it to tread the line

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between being popular and overdoing the populism? I'm joined by two of

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Scotland's experts in manipulating politicians and voters. Former

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Labour spin-doctor Simon Pia is in Edinburgh. Former SNP spinner Ewan

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Crawford is with me here. Simon Pia, would you have advised those

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politicians to say what they were saying? The Labour Party, we are

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allowed to disagree with each other. I do none know if that would apply

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to Ewan. And I am a spin-doctor, or former spin-doctor,... You should

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be more subtle than that. I do not agree with Mark Wright or Brian

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Cowen that, that Rangers is a special case when it comes to tax.

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I know what it is like when you are club goes into administration.

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Hibernian were in a precarious situation than Rangers, with some

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takeovers that would have white that out as a club. Councillors and

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politicians got involved, which is right for constituents. But not

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when it comes to tax. You have to put the tax man first. If there is

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any illegality, it is the end ice. I am sure that the others from

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Labour would say they were not claiming that the taxpayer should

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not get the money that is due to it, but this is football in Scotland.

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Everyone knows, with Rangers, the taxman has been holding off with

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this building for a decade. The Scottish football media were very

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aware of this. There were untold -- it was not an untold secret that

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Rangers was in a precarious position. Would you have advised

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either of those Crewe SNP politicians to have said that?

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will come to the defence of some of the Labour politicians. In Scotland,

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when every you say something about Rangers, it is seen as dangerous,

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because it might upset Celtic. And vice versa. That is what we should

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look at, rather than take a sharp intake of breath when politicians

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talk about the Old Firm. It is the implication that somehow the

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survival of what is a private business is more important than the

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tax payer, whose money is spent, that money should be given. I have

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not heard politicians saying that tax should not be paid. Alex

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Salmond said it was the same interest at stake. But bows might

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not be the same. Getting the tax eventually it is most important.

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Say this was Manchester United or Liverpool faced with going to the

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wall. The idea that politicians in England would not talk about it

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would be fanciable. But it is walking on eggshells. When Alex

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Salmond spoke about Celtic needing Rangers just as much as Rangers

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needing Celtic, which I am sure many watching would say was

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binoculars, but all hell broke loose and Celtic put out official

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statements against that. But it seems you cannot talk about one

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Glasgow football club, would it be dreadful for the other one. We

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cannot be in a situation in Scotland where politicians of any

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party cannot talk about one part of the Old Firm, where it is talking

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on it -- where it is walking on eggshells. It was not quite that,

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was it, Simon Pia? What seemed to annoys Celtic was the suggestion

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that the team depended on Rangers. Perhaps without the Old Firm,

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Scottish football would suffer, but it did not stop Alex Salmond

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getting trouble. Ewan was seeming to make accorded defence of Alex

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Salmond. The sectarian bill was very poor, that was messed up.

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are at it again. I am trying to give you my opinion on this. Of

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course, politicians are right to step in for the ordinary football

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fans, the thousands and thousands of Rangers fans. Rangers might

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survive, with a new company formed, but people have to critically

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examined as scrutinise what has happened at the club. It is not for

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Parliament to get involved, it is up to the SPL, and we can

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scrutinise what has gone wrong, but... You think politicians of all

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parties should shut up? politicians should be wary about

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going on to a populist bandwagon. The SNP Government shunted

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sectarianism as site went coming in. A point is, court and, that the SNP

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got involved when there was an incident at the Old Firm game.

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politicians should shut up? It is interesting. Some politicians have

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got in trouble. But what you are saying about Rangers and Celtic,

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that will not be the debate. point I was trying to make, if this

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was happening in England, people would talk about their clubs.

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Gordon Brown has got involved, saying one of his memorable moments

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was Paul Gascoigne scoring against Scotland. So Labour politicians

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have spoken about football. this you a chance to level this? We

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will leave it there. Thank you both Now, as the independence debate

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increasingly gets round to matters of substance, I've been speaking to

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the Chair of the Government's council of economic advisers.

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Crawford Beveridge, who's an advocate of independence, was at

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Holyrood today answering questions at the economy committee.

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Afterwards at his Edinburgh home I began by asking him what he meant

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when he said recently that for an independent Scotland to keep the

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pound would not be ideal. I think where possible most countries would

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like to be able to control all of the leaders, including setting

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their own interest rates. Clearly whether we were in a European zone

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or a pound zone, we would want to decide what the interest rates

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would be. So that is why towards the end of the last council of

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economic advisers, we were suggesting that they would need to

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be some kind of Fiscal Commission that would allow people to sit down

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and say, what rules will we work under? Much as they are trying to

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do for the euro now. But this would be a British one. So even if

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Scotland was independent, it would be part of what? It would be part

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of a currency union would the rest of the UK. With a British physical

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condition? You would have won it to help the Scottish government here

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understand what these rules might be. Because that is one of the

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issues. If an independent Scotland wanted the Bank of England to act

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as a lender of last resort, and should the rest of the United

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Kingdom be willing to consider such an option, there would have to be

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some pretty stringent rules, wouldn't they? Along the lines of

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the kind of thing the eurozone are talking about. Absolutely. A lot of

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them would be the same kinds of things, the amount of yet -- the

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amount of debt to GDP that you could have, the amount of debt you

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could have in a year. And they would also have to be enforceable?

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Which this was not in the eurozone, so they would have to be some other

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mechanism? Yes, a lot of the things that went wrong in the eurozone,

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even though the main members were very keen and worked these rules

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are a long time ago, there were rules about how much you could go

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into debt. When they came up against countries like France, they

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can be ignored that and went forward. There must be some

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mechanism that says, you cannot go beyond the rules we have set.

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obvious problem with a British currency is that of the rest of the

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UK would be so dominant compared to Scotland that it would effectively

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be able to set the rules. Except within very tight margins on things

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like how much the Scottish Government could borrow? Absolutely

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right. You cannot ignore what the lender of last resort is going to

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lay down in terms of what is upset. But if we went ahead and did some

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borrowing within reasonable means, that would be a good thing. One of

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the things that is Hape well at the moment is the number of -- the

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might have time the Government is spending on capital, which will

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kick-start the economy. You cannot cut your way to great, you have to

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find a way to get growth back into the economy. The obvious

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counterpoint to this is that of the British Government is already

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giving the Scottish Government borrowing powers. If under a

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currency zone, the parameters of those borrowing powers would be

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very limited, because it would have to be part of the fiscal pact, it

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is not quite clear what the difference would be, and whether

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there is any advantage of going through this whole shenanigans of

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independence when you end up with much the same thing. What we don't

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know is what UN do with the same thing, and how much lead -- leeway

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there would be. But it is more than a detail. One of these supposedly

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compelling arguments of the Scottish National Party is that it

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knows that as things stand at the moment, the majority of people are

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against independence, and it has come up with a compelling economic

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reason, that we would have fiscal powers, that what we seem to be

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saying is those fiscal powers compared to being a devolved part

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of the United Kingdom, the difference would either be zero or

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not that much. It depends what happens to GP. We still haven't

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resolved this issue of oil and an oil fund. It might give us more

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money to spend all borrow against then you would normally have. All

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of the revenue goes into a fifth region of the UK, it doesn't get

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split, it goes straight to the Treasury. If we could reclaim some

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of that money here, we would have a lot more leeway. The other issue

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that is coming up is banking. It is unclear what the state of RBS is at

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the moment. It is partially nationalised. Do you think it is

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credible of Scotland became independent to have a bank like

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Abbey S whose assets are a multiple of Scotland's GDP, almost Icelandic

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rather than Irish. Is that credible? Or would it be better if

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it came out of nationalisation as a London based company? I think

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everybody wants to get it out of nationalisation. The top managers

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in the bank are all working to that regard. None of them like the

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Government being in ultimate control. It would be neater if it

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came out of nationalisation before it became a Scottish bank again.

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Would it become a Scottish bank again? I don't know. I don't see

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any reason why shouldn't. It could last for a great deal of time

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longer here. But the worry would be, and of course everyone will say,

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there will be new banking rules, this will never happen again. It

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might not in the short term, but look what happened between class

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steal it in the 1930s and in 1988. And if a company this size went

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down, there is no way an independent Scotland could do what

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the British government had done. would be very hard, I agree. And

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this is why, in amongst the volley of bank regulation there would be,

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you are right, we can never stop anything going wrong to some point,

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but it could be very successful, and you need to think about what

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rules we could put in here they could get most of these nets

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covered. The danger, the downside risk is cataclysmic. Yes, and we

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have to think, do we want and in incredibly dominant bank in

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Scotland, do we want smaller ones? There are banks and smaller

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countries that don't expose themselves internationally. Just

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not the one in our country! And the question is how do they get from...

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For example, the SNP seems to have, some would say, remarkably little

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say. It might be an argument for them to say, we don't want a huge

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bank like RBS. And they think that is a perfectly reasonable argument

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for somebody to make. The banking system in Scotland makes a lot of

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sense. It might not complete -- compete with City banker Schroders,

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but it could be more like many smaller banks around the world.

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None of the smaller banks are trying to gain to do the massive

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banking markets worldwide that are the has tried to get into. You are

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very sympathetic to the idea of independence for Scotland. Yes.

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do think there is a compelling argument. You can understand why a

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lot of people will think, you wanted us to vote for independence,

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to leave the UK and become a separate member of the European

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Union, United Nations, separate military. And the up side is that

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maybe we could have taxes that are a little bit different, and we

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might or might not be able to do a bit more of borrowing. Is the game

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really worth it? I tell you why I think it is worth it. You have to

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pop up a little minute from the economic argument, and ask do you

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want to be in control as you possibly can in this environment

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that we have, and have all of the decisions that you make about what

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is right to a country? I think that is right faster do. I want us to be

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able to decide, even within constraints, that the vulnerable in

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our society can ride on buses free and get free prescriptions, even

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though my neighbours and the South don't think that is a good idea.

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Yes, of course, attitudes to the vulnerable in society might change

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depending on whoever is in power in Britain. But that is almost a

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constituent sense of what Britishness means to many British

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citizens, at least since the Second World War. Britain is proud of its

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National Health Service. Britain is pride of the welfare state that was

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set-up in your namesake's stake - no relative! It is hardly a

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clincher. For me it is. I want to raise my own money and be allowed

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to spend it in the way I want to spend it. Does that mean sometimes

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we will be ahead of our neighbours and sometimes behind? Probably. But

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I would still rather be an independent person of that sort

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then be given a cheque by mum and dad and told to do my best.

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Beveridge, thank you very much indeed.

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Now a quick look at tomorrow's front pages.

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We look at the Scotsman, RBS handing out �800 million in bonuses,

:21:32.:21:42.
:21:42.:21:43.

and a picture there of Marie Colvin. The Herald, and the Daily Telegraph,

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baby girls aborted no questions asked, that is their headline.

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Good evening. A cloudy, misty and mild night for many. With the the

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wind south-westerly, many of these western and southern parts will

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remain grey and damp throughout. Through the Midlands and into

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eastern parts of England, we could see sunny spells and temperatures

:22:18.:22:26.

reaching 16 or 17 Celsius. To the east of Dartmoor, we could see some

:22:26.:22:31.

sunnier breaks. But through the moors, it will remain misty and

:22:31.:22:38.

foggy all day. The same for the hills and mountains of Wales. They

:22:38.:22:42.

will see some patchy rain and drizzle. Northern Ireland will see

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some brightness in the east. The patchy rain and drizzle turns a bit

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heavier across the North West of Scotland. Warmer and brighter to

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the east. Things change across the North Thursday into Friday, but the

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temperatures drop. We will slowly sea temperatures drop because

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England and Wales, too. This comes from a cold front working its way

:23:08.:23:14.

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